crafts – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: invention and solutions

Even though the kids have activities on the weekend, I’m trying to make the most of the activity-free time. For me, that’s a blend of family adventures, chores and unstructured time. Self care is a bit of a trendy thing these days, and I’m finding that chores actually do constitute self care for me. Knocking things off the looming to do list does more for my mental health, than, say, a massage. (That might be a little unfair because I’ve never really liked massages, but you get the point.)

Last weekend, I took the kids to the local farm park. They were having a “Fall on the Farm” festival. It was drizzly and wet, but we still managed to make corn husk dolls, learn about soap making, and listen to an old time string band. I was fascinated by the musician playing the jaws harp – such a little instrument… I wonder if there was a sense of futility in playing it in a large open barn. The soap demonstrator too was particularly fascinating. She was a scholar whose primary focus was on soap in the Colonial times and she had all sorts of knowledge and theories about soap, how it was manufactured and how it was used. We stopped for Rita’s frozen custard on the way home. “We always get ice cream when we go on adventures!” the nine year old insisted.

I’ve started on the Hallowe’en costumes. I love making Hallowe’en costumes. I’m going to admit that. I feel almost abashed about saying it because I feel like Hallowe’en costumes have become one of those rocks in the maternal mental load, particularly for working mothers. When I tell people I’m making the kids’ costumes, I get this look of wide eyed disbelief, like I’m trying too hard. But here’s the deal: I make them because I like making them. I like the puzzle and the engineering and the crafting something out of nothing. (See previous post about making rehearsal props out of cardboard.) There was a year or two when the nine year old only wanted purchased costumes from Costco and I was a little sad about that. So as long as my kids will let me, I will continue to make them costumes.

This year, the nine year old decided that everyone is going as a character from Star Wars. She chose Princess Leia. The Husband suggested Princess Leia from Hoth since that would be the easiest costume to source. He was right – white pants, shirt, puffy vest have been ordered. I’m making a yarn braid as well:

The four year old, when asked who he wanted to be, answered, “The Millenium Falcon.”

I told my friend this. “I see a lot of cardboard in your life,” she said.

Indeed:

The baby will be Han Solo, or she will just wear her R2D2 pjs, depending on what I have time for.

I took the car in for an oil change also. It was supposed to be one of those drop it off and come back affairs. But then I mentioned that the drive side headlight was out and could they look at it since I had replaced the bulb recently. I had had this issue before and when I took it too the dealer, they said they didn’t know what the problem was, so I almost didn’t mention it to my new mechanic. So he said he would take a look. The baby and I wandered the town where the mechanic was, we went to the park and the children’s library. We stopped at the fancy bakery and bought ham and cheese croissants and cookies. Then we went back to the mechanics. Well turns out, he had figured out the problem but needed to wait for the part to come in. I was so excited that he could fix the issue that I wasn’t at all annoyed that it would be another hour and a half. We wandered to the adult library three blocks over, sat in the garden and ate our croissants in the garden and then went inside to looked at more books.

It’s funny – what was originally supposed to be a two hour errand unexpectedly turned into a five hour errand, but despite that, it was a pretty good day. Libraries, parks, croissants and a wonderful mechanic – hard to go wrong there. I think, though, what really made the day feel decadent was that I luckily had the luxury of time. Certainly for many people, a two hour appointment morphing into a five hour appointment can really wreck havoc with one’s day. So perhaps it’s the silver lining of my current unpaid work status.

Other things to savor this week:

Full moon and hospital – as seen on one of our evening walks.

This inspirational and creative rock garden that we see on our neighborhood rambles.

Watching the baby grow by leaps and bounds

The baby helping to sweep, then actually picking up each individual Cheerio and placing it carefully in the dustpan.

This little creekside spot where we go to throw rocks when the playground is too wet with dew.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Dumplings.

Sunday: Leftovers.

Monday: Vegetarian Bibimbap. This was a “use up all the veggies” meal. I always think bibimbap is going to be complicated, but it’s always comes together much faster than I expece.

Tuesday: Shrimp and Pasta from America’s Test Kitchen’s Bowls cookbook.

Wednesday: Chickpea Noodle Soup from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan For Everyone. This was really tasty.

Thursday: The Husband cooke and he made fried chicken salad.

Friday: Pizza and some random sit com with puppies. It was the baby’s turn to “choose” the movie and I had started with All Dogs Go to Heaven, but then there was this awkward Asian caricature in it and I decided that we didn’t need to watch anymore of that movie.

Weekly Recap + what we ate – Christmas Week

Ready for Christmas. Incidentally – note how all the ornaments have migrated to the top half of the tree.

It’s the week leading up to Christmas, swinging by Winter Solstice on the way. Someone on a message board I read wrote: “There is more light in the days ahead!” And it feels particularly apt this year.

My brother, a physician in a hospital, received his first vaccine dose this week. I’m so immensely relieved, grateful, excited, and happy. It feels a little unreal that a vaccine could bring us all out of this everything-from-home life that we’ve been leading since March.

“I imagine we are all going to emerge, blinking, as if coming out of a cave,” a friend of mine said the other day. Plato’s allegorical cave come to life.

Life back to normal still seems a long way off, though. Particularly since our state has just reinstated some restrictions such as the ban on indoor dining and stricter regulations on in person gathering. The school district has pushed back in person learning to February at the earliest.

Meanwhile life goes on. This weekend we did a big room shuffle, moving the two older kids to the bigger bedroom where the baby had been sleeping, and moving the baby to the former toy room and the toy room to the room the two older kids had been sleeping in. Eventually the Husband will move his office to share with the baby. It was certainly a lot of work, but I took the opportunity to shuffle and sort some toys, pack away some too-small clothes, and re-assess what room needs really need to be. We are slowing progressing towards the idea of bunk beds for the two older kids. I feel like room sharing is somewhat passe as an idea, particularly among children of opposite genders. But I really like the idea of the kids learning to co-exist before they get their own rooms. Perhaps, though, this will backfire and room sharing will make them crave their solitude rather than value communal living….

Some fun projects from this week:

The sourdough starter is alive and bubbling. I haven’t made break yet, but I did make English muffins the other day. They were a little dense and didn’t have the nooks and crannies that I wanted, but they had an appealing sourdough tang to the flavour. The kids almost ate the whole batch before dinner. Also – I was surprised and pleased how much they ended up looking like commercial English muffins.

Handprint Christmas tree – The Husband has Handprint Christmas trees lovingly preserved from his childhood – construction paper craft projects he and his sister made in elementary school. He brings those out at Christmas time and hangs them on our walls. This year, I did a version using the kids hands, along with my hands and the Husband’s hand I would love to say we all sat down one evening with hot cocoa and crafted. But that would be a lie. It was more like, I grabbed hands as I could over the course of the day and then used painter’s tape to tape the to the wall. The result makes me smile nonetheless.

John McLane Christmas ornament. I saw this online and had to make it for the Husband. Incidentally we watched Die Hard this week too. Also – the Husband says Little Women is not a Christmas movie. I’m a little outraged by this.

There were more Cardboard projects this week thanks to the new oven. When they delivered it, I said, “Can you leave the box?” and they said yes. And they also had a refrigerator box that they left us as well. There are parts of the house that look like a cardboard city. It is getting a little ridiculous. At any rate:

Another Cardboard Fort for secret sibling meetings.

Well, the presents are wrapped, the cookies decorated. For the record this year – I made the Gingerbread recipe from King Arthur’s flower with the spice combination from Tartine. I like the texture of the results, but it is still not spcy enough for me.) The cut out cookies were also from King Arthur Flour. I liked the texture of this last one, but prefer the taste of the one from Cooks Illustrated that we made last year. Frosting from Cooks Illustrated with orange juice instead of milk.

The kids got baths and matching Star Wars Pajamas and we watched It’s a Wonderful Life. We read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and cookies and milk have been put out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. I’m sitting up waiting for the first rise of the dough for cinnamon rolls. I bake them every Christmas- a tender, not to decadent recipe from The Irish Pantry cookbook. It involves boiling and mashing a potato. I always seem to leave it til the last minute and then am up til all hours making them. At least this way, I can stay up for a peek at Santa.

What we ate:

Saturday: Was our 11th anniversary and we got take out from a Malaysian Restaurant that is one of our favorites. They gave us a free dessert. We also watched Elf.

Sunday: Breakfast for dinner – pancakes and veggie egg scramble. I love how we can make six pancakes at a time on our griddle – makes it so much faster to whip up pancakes!

Monday: Hoppin’ John with Collard greens form Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everyhing Fast. There was a mix up with our produce box this week and we were sent an abundance of collard greens and Brussels sprouts, neither of which are family favorites. But the Husband said this was not as bad as he thought it would be.

Tuesday: Broiled Salmon and Asparagus with Zucchini pancakes. This last was from the Moosewood Cookbook; I was hoping they would be like fritters, but they were more like omlettes with egg. The Salmon and Asparagus was from the Bittman Book, though it’s hardly something you need a recipe for: salt pepper, olive oil. Broil for 10-15 mins.

Wednesday: Charred Tomato and Broccoli Tabbouleh. Also from How to Cook Everything Fast. I thought this was really tasty. So I see a trend this week… I borrowed the Bittman cookbook from the library because I wanted to incorporate more efficient yet healthy meals to our dinner rotation. While I love a good project meal, most days I just want nutritious, fast, and edible. Tasty would be a plus, too. So far, I’m finding a lot of really good ideas and reminders in this cookbook. It’s a little heavy on the meat recipes, so it’s not a “cook your way through” type of book, but I’m finding that most of the recipes fulfil the nutritious, fast, and edible requirements and are tasty too.

Thursday: I had planned Toful Banh Mi bowls, but really we had the Husband’s specialty snack sausage balls with cookies. Also some cut up carrots, pepper and cucumbers. And we ate this while watching It’s a Wonderful Life.

Stage Management Skills in Real Life: Tape, Cardboard, and Creativity

On the radio the other day, there was a discussion about recycling, and they said that cardboard recycling has gone up during COVID. We are no stranger to this phenomenon, having more than done our part to contribute to Jeff Bezos’ wealth. The real cardboard goldmine, however, came courtesy of the new fridge we bought for the basement.

“Make sure to tell them to leave the box!” I said to the Husband when he told me that the fridge was being delivered.

The day the fridge arrived, as the delivery people were trying to figure out how to take the door off the fridge, I waved them down, pointing at the box. “Can you please leave it?” They delivery guy looked at me and laughed.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, and dragged it to the far end of the driveway.

Immediately the kids were entranced and set up shop inside, among the Styrofoam and packing materials. It made a shady little hideout from the 90 degree weather.

“We can’t just leave it here,” I said. “Let’s have a plan.”

The next day, I was playing in the backyard with the two younger kids when I heard scraping and thumping and heaving. I looked around the house, and saw the eight year old trying to heave this box, this very big, refrigerator box, over the front gate and into the back yard.

I wasn’t quite sure what the plan was. Just that it was a big box. When I was little, I read a book called Christina Katerina and the Box by Patricia Lee Gauch. It tells the story of a little girl’s endless adventure with a large cardboard box. Ever after, I saw cardboard boxes as full of infinite possibilities and mutations, and even now I have a hard time throwing large boxes out. “It is going to be something!” I tell myself. After all, the cardboard box was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2005.

The eight year old decided that the refrigerator box was going to be a clubhouse/ lemonade stand. We painted it with some leftover paint from painting her bedroom (turquoise) and the dining room (yellow). Holes were cut to be the service window. The kids moved in and started to play in it, running in and out, serving lemonade, using other boxes to be a pretend counter.

Then rain was forecast and the box was brought inside, much to the Husband’s chagrin. I mean the thing is huge. We folded it up and tucked it in the play room, and the eight year old continued to plot and design. Eventually she fashioned a drink dispenser out of a smaller box and some paper and we slotted it into the side of the larger box.

Inside of a lemonade stand. Yes, our living room is impossible to navigate these days.

The cardboard creative bug was unleashed.

A few weeks later, I saw this DIY large object permanence box on a Montessori website, and decided to make one for the baby. Mine is not as neat and tidy as the one featured, but still, the baby has really gotten into dropping a ball into the hole and looking for it at the bottom where it comes out. She has actually now moved on to dropping cars in the hole and watching them come shooting out the doors. The three year old, too, has really gotten into this.

“More! More! Cardboard creations!” a Gollum-like voice inside me insisted.

Which brings me to yet another stage management skill that has been languishing during COVID: making rehearsal props out of tape and cardboard.

I remember during my first stage management internship at a regional theatre – a production of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians – the props mistress was so excited to have found a set of ten carved Indians on eBay. She was rhapsodic about the ease with which she was able to find these things, and now we just had to wait for them to be shipped to us from across the country. The idea that she could find such a specific prop without having to visit fifteen antique stores or hand make it herself was intoxicating.

The patience and wonder we had with the way the internet made propping a show much easier has worn off a little these days. Now we take it for granted sometimes that things can be clicked upon and delivered the next day. Like on those days when a director demands that the prop he added five seconds ago should have been in rehearsal yesterday.

So what is a props ASM to do when the need is immediate and the Props Master needs at least a couple hours to produce something? Well, if it isn’t readily at hand, you decide that, yes, the performers need something to put in their hands. Right. This. Minute. No, they can’t mime it. So, okay. What are we going to give them? (At one theatre I worked at, the Prop Crew had a tongue-in-cheek rehearsal prop request form. One of the questions on the form was, “Please explain why a piece of 2×4 labelled with gaff tape will not suffice in rehearsal.”)

So you root around, take stock of what there is, scavenge a little, do some magic with scissors, some origami with unpliable objects and then wrap it all in yards of tape to keep it all together.

I have crafted many a rehearsal prop in my time. Janky rehearsal prop construction out of minimal materials is definitely a job skill. You have analyze how the “improptu” is needed to function in rehearsal. Does it need to work or move in a certain way? Is it something that has to be thrown? Sat upon? Exchanged between singers? Does it need to just be the right size and shape to fit in someone’s hand?

Next, you have to balance aesthetics with the function. So you don’t want it to look so ugly that it is distracting in rehearsal, but you also don’t want it to look so good that it becomes the real prop. This is where wrapping the creation in black gaff tape is helpful.

Then you look at what is available and get to work.

Things that are helpful to have for optimal rehearsal prop creation:

Tape
Dowels
Handkerchiefs, or fabric
String or Rope
Paper
Cardstock
Wire
Scissors, or Box Cutters
Tape. Gaff Tape, Spike Tape, Clear Tape. A wide variety of tape.

With those things, I figure you can make just about any rehearsal prop you need. I mean maybe not things that are bigger than a house cat, but really most things. It won’t necessarily be pretty, but it will get you through til the real thing comes. Or until the director decides that was a bad idea after all and cut the thing.

“Improptus” I or my colleagues have constucted: jewelery, cigarettes, cigars, globes, reticules, pocket watches, wands, butterfly nets, miniatures in frames, large pictures in frames, brushes, hand mirrors… the list goes on.

So back to COVID present times and the carboard box city growing in our house – or as my husband calls it, “The Warehouse”. I asked the three year old what he wanted. And he said he wanted a UPS truck.

My friend Kristen had recently gifted us a large box. Originally I had promised this box to my husband to use as cover in the garden later this year, but I figured that there would be no shortage of cardboard in our house, and that a UPS truck was a worthy project for such a large box. So I wrestled the box inside the house and started cutting a front window.

“It needs to have a sliding door,” the three year old said.

This is when I have to start breaking things down in my head. What exactly are the essential elements of a sliding door? Well, a door. And a track. And a handle.

A door is easy – a large rectangle. I cut out a window on that as well.

And a handle is easy to fashion out of a strip of cardboard, though it does take a lot of tape to get it to stick.

Which leaves a track. And I think what is a basic track? Well it’s a groove, I guess. So I cut two long pieces of cardboard to run the back length of the box, bent them to form a place for the door to ride, and taped those to the box. I slid the door in and voila!

I drew a UPS symbol on the box… amazing how much authenticity a logo can give a confection of cardboard and tape.

Next, turning out attention to the inside – some knobs and a steering wheel, all made to turn on cylinders made of more cardboard.

“And it needs buttons,” he said.

Well, that was beyond me. But not beyond that other Stage Management magic weapon…. the Sharpie.

He is delighted with it. He sits in it and drives, “pushes” the buttons, turns the knobs. He fills it with more, yes, cardboard boxes, and delivers his packages around the house. I almost need to find him brown pants and a brown polo shirt.

I’m not sure how long these cardboard creations will last. But, as with improptus, longevity isn’t the point. Even though these things aren’t the real thing, they serve their purpose. There is joy and satisfaction in their creation and there is joy and satisfaction in seeing them put to use. They are perfect for the now. They don’t have to be perfect for the forever.